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  #1  
Old 26th November 2012, 09:29 AM
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HopALong HopALong is offline
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Default Test Strips

Hi

I have two boxes of Ilford Multigrade RC Pearl paper, one is sized 7x5 the other is 10x8.
My question is, can I use the 7x5 as test strips for the 10x8 or do I have to use the paper from the 10x8 batch for an accurate test strip?

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Andy
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Old 26th November 2012, 09:50 AM
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Andy,

Ilford papers are very consistant batch to batch so as long as the two boxes of paper are of about the same age you shouldn't see any difference in the results of your test strips.

If you want to be absolutely sure just do a side by side evalution using the same dev time / exposure / filter / neg values.

Neil.
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Old 26th November 2012, 10:49 AM
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Cheers Neil

They are about the same age, but I'll do a side by side test to be sure, I never even thought of that, great suggestion.

Andy
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Old 26th November 2012, 11:23 AM
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Default Test strips.

I do and have done so for years. I purposely bought a box of 5x7 Fibre paper to use as test strips together with the 12x16 fibre. (Kentmere) Cutting a sheet of that is both awkward and costly.

With colour it is different, because different batches of colour paper may have a slightly different colour balance.
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Old 26th November 2012, 01:04 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by HopALong View Post
Cheers Neil

They are about the same age, but I'll do a side by side test to be sure, I never even thought of that, great suggestion.

Andy

Andy,

I am sure you will be OK with Ilford papers of the same surface and paper type. Give it a go and see how you get on.

Neil.
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Old 26th November 2012, 01:15 PM
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it may work or it may not.
The fact you are asking means there can be uncertainty. Why not just remove any uncertainty and use strips from the paper batch you will be printing final image on. And its fractionally cheaper to do so, not costly at all. I always use strips from same box of paper.
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Old 26th November 2012, 01:37 PM
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I think it's best to remove as many variables as possible, I use strips from the same batch.
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Old 26th November 2012, 02:01 PM
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I always use test strips from the same box of paper that I intend to make my final print from. I think that you will always find variations in paper from box to box and it can be very frustrating to find that your final print is not similar to your test strip. I learned this the hard way.
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Old 26th November 2012, 04:39 PM
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On FADU recently we have spoken of the effect an increased print size has on contrast. There may be little in it given the small increase here but to eliminate this you can set the enlarger to the 8x10 size and use the 7x5 paper.

I'd be interested in your results if you were to try both the 7x5 and strips from the 8x10 to see what your conclusions are.

Despite being different batches my gut feel is that the difference may be little or nothing but that is all it is - simply gut feel.

Mike
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Old 26th November 2012, 06:03 PM
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infact for the two suppliers I looked at, buying 100 sheet boxes show that the cost per square inch is slightly less when buying the larger paper size. So its actually cheaper to use paper from your 8x10 box rather than your 5x7 box.
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